Nevertheless, Rakitic is hopeful that the prolific attacker will remain with the Catalan side and has vowed to do whatever it takes to convince his team-mate to stay put.

“Messi is the best player ever. He’s unique and we will never see anyone like him,” Rakitic told Mundo Deportivo.

“It’s up to him to decide his future, but as his team-mate all I can say is that I want him to stay and want to keep playing together with him. Even if I was playing at the moon, I wish he’d join me there.

“I know that he still has an ongoing contract with Barcelona and I hope that he will fulfil his contract and stay here for a long time.

“And I’m not saying that just for me, but for everybody at Camp Nou and for those who are no longer at Barca but still care about the club.

“The only thing we can do is keep fighting and make sure we want to win as badly as him. We all want the same and want to win many titles. And we want to win them together.”